Regardless of what one thinks of the current administration in Budapest, it is important to remember the events of October-November 1956, when student-led protests led to serious agreements on government reforms, only for Soviet tanks to quash the whole movement. Refugees fled the country for various parts from Austria to America.

I'll be brief with this post, so if you want to learn more about this historical event, please see TIME photos here, the Wiki page here, or watch this 48-minute video from the BBC's Timewatch series:

I’ll be brief today on the sad news of the prolific director’s passing at the age of 90, still diligently engaged in creative endeavors. Although not as well known internationally, Wajda’s work outshines that of Roman Polanski, whose career he helped launch. You can read more about him in this Guardian article and in this detailed and penetrating homage. entertainment site called A.V. Club.

I must confess that I’ve only seen three of his films. One was 1983’s Danton, in which Gérard Depardieu plays the fiery French revolutionary. Then there was Pan Tadeusz (1999) which I saw as a grad student at Ohio State’s Slavic Department during a weekend-long Polish cultural festival. That movie is Wajda’s lush representation of the eponymous epic poem by national poet Adam Mickiewicz. It takes place in the early nineteenth century, after Poland had been partitioned by Austria, Prussia and Russia. Two families, living in czarist Congress Poland are divided over whether to be loyal to Russia or to support Polish independence. A few years later, at another Slavic Department-sponsored screening, I saw his 2007 film Katyń, which deals with the massacre of Polish officers by Stalin’s Red Army. A grim but powerful film.

Wajda has earned his place in the canon of world film. None of his films won an Oscar, though four were nominated, and he was presented with an Academy Honorary Award for his contribution to cinema in 2000. Hopefully, he will now receive even greater recognition outside of Poland. And I'll see if I can find more of him on Netflix!